
CENTENNIAL ADDRESS 



AT CAMBRIDGE. 



By ANDREW P. PEABODY 



ADDRESS 



DELIVERED AT CAMBRIDGE, 



PluutrveTiti) ^nniljccsarg 



WASHIlSrGTOK'S TAKING C0MMA:N^D OF 
THE CO:N^TII>rE^TAL ARMY, 



JULY 3, 1875. 




By ANDREW P. PEABODY. 



Reprinted from the New-England Histoiucal and Genealogical Register 
for Octoljer, 1875. 



BOSTON: 

PRINTED BY DAVID OLAPP & SON, 

1875. 



<;"■ 



oy 






ADDRESS. 



WHEN it was proposed to give a place to this epoch in the series of 
centennials, my first thought was that Lexington, Concord, Bunker 
Hill, in so recent memory, and the already glowing work of preparation for 
the country's hundredth birthday, would so dwarf and chill our celebration 
here as to make it merely a heartless municipal parade. But the occasion 
has grown upon me. I see and feel that it holds the foremost place in the 
series. It has paramount claims, not on us or our State, but on our whole 
people. We might rightfully have made our arrangements, not for a local, 
but for a national festival. We commemorate the epoch but fur which Lex- 
ington, Concord, Bunker Hill would have left in our history hardly a trace, 
probably not a single name, and the centennial of our independence would 
remain for a generation not yet upon the stage to celebrate. 

Cambridge was the first capital of our infant republic, the cradle of our 
nascent liberty, the hearth of our kindling p'atriotism. Before the 3d of 
July, 1775, there were tumults, conflicts, bold plans, rash enterprises; but 
there was no coordinating and controlling will, purpose, or authority. On 
and from that day the colonies were virtually one people. Before, they had 
nothing in common but their grievances. They were as yet British pro- 
vinces, — though wrenching the cords that held them, still undetached, and 
with no mode of action upon or with one another. By adopting the army 
and choosing its head they performed their first act, not of alliance, but of 
organic unity, and became a nation unawares, while they thought themselves 
still wronged and suppliant dependencies of the British crown. They thus 
decided the question between a worse than unsuccessful rebellion and 
revolution. 

That the rebellion, as such, would have been an utter failure, is only too 
certain. Tlie American party in England had on its side eloquence, indeed 
and wisdom, but neither numerical force in Parliament, nor the power to 



4 

mollify ministerial obstinacy, or to penetrate with a sense of right the crass 
stupidity on the throne. Boston was held by disciplined, thoroughly armed 
and well-fed troops, under otficers of approved skill and prowess, strongly 
entrenched and fortified at accessible points, and sustained by a formidable 
naval force. Hardly one in fifty of the colonial army had had any ex- 
perience in war, and I doubt whether there was a single man among them, 
officer or jjrivate, who was a soldier by i:>rofession. They had come from 
the farm and the forge, with such arms and equipments as they could bring ; 
they had no bureau of supply, no military chest, no organized commissariat, 
and their stock of ammunition was so slender that it was ordered by the 
Provincial Congress that no salute should be fired on the reception of the 
commander-in-chief. They were from four diiferent provinces, under as 
many generals, with sectional jealousies which the common cause could 
hardly keep at bay ; and harmonious counsels could be maintained or ex- 
pected only and scarcely at moments of imminent peril. At Bunker Hill 
they had shown both tlieir strength and their weakness, their unsurpassed 
courage and their poverty of resource. Superior in the conflict, overwhelm- 
ing the enemy with the shame and disaster of a signal defeat, they had been 
compelled to yield the ground on which they had won imperishable glory, 
and to see the heights they had so bravely defended occupied by a hostile 
battery. They held Boston beleaguered by the prestige of that day, too 
feeble to press the siege, yet, as they had well proved, too strong to be dis- 
lod'i'ed and scattered, but by the disintegrating elements in their own un- 
organized body. These elements were already at work, and the secession 
of even a single regiment would have been the signal for speedy dissolution 
r.nd submission to the royal government. 

This precarious condition of affairs was beyond the remedial authority of 
the individual provinces. Massachusetts could choose a general for her own 
troops, but could not place the forces of New Hampshire, Connecticut and 
Rhode Island under his control. Still less could any efficient system of 
sustetumce or armament have been arranged by separate legislatures. A 
central authority alone could carry forward the resistance so nobly begun. 
The Continental Congress would in vain have passed patriotic resolutions, 
protests against tyranny, votes of sympathy ; in vain would the}^ have 
aroused po])ular indignation and multiplied centres of resistance through the 
land. ' The one decisive act in the struggle, the seal of what had been 
achieved, the presage and pledge of all that should ensue in the coming 
years, was that the consummation of which we now celebrate. 

Cambridge was for obvious geographical reasons the only place where the 
pi'ovincial troops could have their head-quarters, — lying near enough to the 
enemy to watch and check his movements, yet jirotected from sudden or in- 
sidious attack by the intervention of the then unbridged arm of the sea 



which separates it from Boston. There was, at the same time, an intrinsic 
fitness that the opening scenes of the great drama should be enacted here, 
where so many of the leaders in counsel and arms had learned to loathe op- 
pression and to hold the cause of liberty sacred. 

From its earliest days our university had always been on the side of free- 
dom. Its first two presidents were far in advance of their times in their 
views of the right of the individual man to unrestricted liberty of thought, 
opinion, speech and action. Increase Mather, when president, took the lead 
in the opposition to the tyrannical acts of Andros and Randolph, sailed for 
England as the unofficial agent of the aggrieved colonists, was appointed to 
an official agency on the news of the revolution of 1G88, bore an important 
part in tlie construction of the new provincial charter and in securing its ac- 
ceptance, and nominated to the royal court the governor, council and prin- 
cipal officers under it. His successors were of a like spirit, and there is on 
record no instance in which the college succumbed to usurpation, stooped to 
sycophancy, or maintained other than an erect position before the emissaries 
of the royal government. The culture of the students was in great part 
classical, and in the last century the classics were the text-books of all lovers 
of freedom. A sceptical criticism had not then cast doubt on any of the 
stories of ancient heroism, nor had a minute analysis laid bare the excesses 
and defects of the early republics, whose statesmen and warriors were 
deemed tlie peerless models of patriotic virtue, and whose orators thrilled 
the hearts of their New-England readers, as they had the Athenian demos, 
the senate in the capitol, or the dense masses of Roman citizens in the 
forum. 

Almost all the Massachusetts clergy, perhaps tlie major part of those of 
New-England, had been educated here. The Tories among them were very 
few, and nearly the whole of their number were ardent patriots. The pulpit 
then sustained in affiiirs of public moment the part which is now borne by 
the daily press ; its utterances during the eventful years of our life-struggle 
had no uncertain sound; and the champions, deeds of prowess and war- 
lyrics of the Hebrew Scriptures gave the frequent key-note to sermon, prayer 
and sacred song. 

Among the pioneers and guiding spirits of the Revolution, who were 
graduates of the college, when I have named the Adamses, Otises, Quincys 
Warrens, Pickering, Hancock, Trumbull, Ward, Cushing, Bowdoin, Phillips, 
I have but given you specimens of the ty[)e and temjier of those who for 
many years had gone from Cambridge to fill the foremost places of trust 
and influence throughout and be^'ond our Commonwealth. That they carried 
Avith them hence their liberal views of government and of the rights of man, 
we well know in the case of those of whose lives we have the record. Thus 
we find John Adams, ju-t after graduating here, more than twenty years 



before the declaration of independence, writing to a friend his anticipations 
for America, not only of her freedom from European sway, but of her be- 
coming the chief seat of empire for the world. Year after year, on the 
commencement platform in the old parish church, had successive ranks of 
earnest young men rehearsed to greedy ears the dream of liberty which they 
pledged faith and life to realize. 

In the successive stages of the conflict of the colonies with the mother 
country, the college uniformly committed itself unequivocally on the pa- 
triotic side. When the restrictions on the colonial trade called forth warm 
expressions of resentment, the senior class unanimously resolved to take 
their degrees in what must then have been exceedingly rude apparel, — home- 
spun and home-made cloth. When tea was proscribed by public sentiment, 
and some few students persisted in bringing it into commons, the faculty 
forbade its use, alleging that it was a source of grief and uneasiness to many 
of the students, and that banishing it was essential to harmony and peace 
within the college walls. After the day of Lexington and Concord all four 
of the then existing college buildings were given up for barracks, and the 
president's house for officers' quarters. When the commander-in-chief was 
expected, this house was designated for his use, with the reservation of a 
single room for President Langdon's own occupancy. Though the few re- 
maining students were removed to Concord, the president, an ardent patriot, 
seems to have still resided here, or at least to have spent a large portion of 
his time near the troops ; for we find frequent traces of his presence among 
them, and on the eve of the battle of Bunker Hill he officiated as their chap- 
lain. In connection with the prevailing spirit of the university, it is worthy 
of emphatic statement that the commander-in-chief was the first person who 
here received the honorary degree of doctor of laws. 

To Harvard graduates the country was indebted for the choice of the illus- 
trious chieftain. The earliest mention that we can find of Washington's 
name in this connection is in a letter of James AVarren to John Adams, 
bearing date the 7th of May. Adams seems at once to have regarded him 
as the only man fitted for this momentous service. Though the formal 
nomination was made by Mr. Johnson of Maryland, Mr. Adams on a previous 
day first designated Washington as " a gentleman whose skill and experience 
as an officer, whose independent fortune, great talents, and excellent imi- 
versal character would command the approbation of all America, and unite 
the cordial exertions of all the colonies better than any other person in the 
Union." There were, however, objections on sectional grounds and per- 
sonal ambitions that required the most delicate treatment, and it was mainly 
in consequence of Mr. Adams's strong will, untiring effijrt and skilful hand- 
ling of opposing wishes and claims that the final ballot was unanimous. On 
the 5th of June the election was made. It was formally announced to 



Washington by Hancock, the president of Congress, and was accepted on 
the spot. 

The commander, impressed with the imminence of the crisis, denied him- 
self the sad privilege of a farewell in person to his own household, took 
leave of his wife in a letter equally brave and tender, and on the 21st com- 
menced his northward journey. Twenty miles from Philadelphia he met a 
courier with tidings of the battle of Bunker Hill. Eagerly inquiring as to 
the details of the transaction, and learning the promptness, skill and cour- 
age that had made the day forever memorable, he exclaimed, " The liberties 
of the country are safe ! " A deputation from the Provincial Congress met 
him at Springfield, and volunteer cavalcades gave him honorable attendance 
from town to town, till, on the 2d of July, he arrived at Watertown, received 
and returned the congratulatory address of the Congress there assembled, 
and was then escorted by a company of horse and a goodly body of mounted 
civilians to the president's house, now known as Wadsworth House. The 
rapid jouriiey on horseback from Philadelphia to Cambridge, and that in 
part over rough roads — an enterprise beyond the easy conception of our 
time — must have rendered the brief repose of that midsummer night essential 
to the prestige of the morrow, when on the first impressions of the hour may 
have been poised the destiny of the nation. 

There were reasons why Washington not only might have been, but 
would inevitably have been ill received, had he not been made to win men's 
confidence and love. Several of the officers already on the ground had 
shown their capacity for great things, and had their respective circles of 
admirers, who were reluctant to see them superseded by a stranger; and had 
not the officers themselves manifested a magnanimity equal to their courage, 
the camp would have been already distracted by hostile factions. Then, 
too, the Virginian and New-England character, manners, style of speech, 
modes of living, tastes, aptitudes, had much less in common at that time of 
infrequent intercourse than half a century later, when, as we well know, 
apart from political divergence, mere social differences were sufficient to 
create no little mutual repugnancy. Washington was also well known to 
be an Episcopalian, and Episcopacy, from the first offensive on Puritan soil, 
was never more abhorred than now, when its Northern professors, with 
hardly an exception, were openly hostile to the cause of the people, — when 
in Cambridge almost every conspicuous dwelling from Fresh Pond to the 
Inman House in Cambridgeport had been the residence of a refugee royalist 
member of the English Church. 

The morning of the third of July witnessed on the Cambridge Common, 
and at every point of view in and upon the few surrounding houses, such a 
multitude of men, women and children as had never been gathered here be- 
fore, and perhaps has never since assembled till this very day. Never was 



8 

the advent or presence of mortal man a more complete and transcendent 
triumph. Majestic grace and sweet benignity were blended in countenance 
and mien. He looked at once the hero, patriot, sage. With equal dignity 
and modesty he received the thunders of acclamation, in which every voice 
bore part. His first victory, the prestige of which forsook him not for a 
moment during the weary years that followed, was already gained when 
under yon ancient elm he drew his sword as commander-in-chief. He had 
conquered thousands of hearts, that remained true to him to their last throb. 
The wife of John Adams writes of his appearance at that moment, " Those 
lines of Dryden instantly occurred to me, — 

' Mark his majestic fabric ! He 's a temple 
Sacred by birth, and built by hands divine ; 
His soul 's the deity that lodges there ; 
Nor is the pile unworthy of the God.' " 

Never indeed can the temple have been more worthy of the tenant. He 
was forty-three years of age, in the prime of manly vigor and beauty, tall 
and commanding, symmetrical and graceful, unsurpassed as an accomplished 
equestrian, with the bearing and manners of a high-bred gentleman. His 
countenance— in later years, and in many of the portraits and engravings of 
him, fearfully distorted by one of the first rude essays of American manu- 
facturing dentistry — still bore the perfect outlines which nature gave it, and 
betokened the solemn grandeur of soul, loftiness, gentleness, simplicity, bene- 
volence, which dwelt within. Peale's portrait of him, taken a year or two 
earlier, and engraved for the second volume of Irving's " Life of Washing- 
ton," fully justifies the enthusiastic admiration which welcomed his appear- 
ance here, and in subsequent years made his mere presence an irresistible 
power. 

AVith characteristic promptness he lingered not to satisfy the eyes that 
feasted on him, but immediately made his inspection of the encampments 
scattered in a semicircle from AVinter Hill to Dorchester Neck, and recon- 
noitred the British troops from all available points of observation. On the 
British side he saw every token of military science, skilful engineering and 
strict discipline ; within the American lines, an aggregation rather than an 
army, — bodies of raw, untrained militia, a sad deficiency of arms, accoutre- 
ments and even necessary clothing, rudely constructed works, extensive, too, 
beyond the capacity of the troops to maintain and defend them. Only among 
the Rhode-Island regiments, under General Greene, did he discover aught of 
military order, system, discipline and subordination. The greater part of the 
forces consisted of Massachusetts men, and these were the most destitute. The 
commander's large-hearted sympathy did ample justice to their need and to 
their patriotism. " This unhappy and devoted province," he writes to the 
president of Congress, " has been so long in a state of anarchy, and the yoke has 



9 

been laid so heavily on it, that great allowances are to be made for troops raised 
under such circumstances. The deficiency of numbers, discipline and stores 
can only lead to this conclusion, that their spirit has exceeded their strength," 

How long Washington remained in the president's house cannot be as- 
certained, — probably but a few days. The house, considerably smaller than 
it now is, was insufficient for the accommodation of his military fiimily, and 
arrangements were early made for his removal to the Vassal) house, now 
Mr. Longfellow's, which had been deserted by its Tory owner, and occupied 
by the Marblehead troops. Here he resided till the following April. 

I have described the acclamations of joy, trust and hope that hailed our 
chieftain's arrival. With the shouts of the multitude ascended to heaven 
the last breath of a Cambridge patriot. Colonel Gardner — a member of 
the Provincial Congress, a man universally honored and beloved, a pillar in 
Church and State, one of the bravest officers at Bunker Hill — received his 
fatal wound at the head of his regiment, rallied strength to urge them to 
valiant and vigorous resistance, lingered death-bound till the morning that 
gave the troops their leader and the country its father, and left the charge 
of a gallant officer's obsequies for the commander's first official duty. We 
have the general order bearing date July 4, for the rendering of the usual 
military honors at the funeral of one, who — so the document reads — " fought, 
bled and died in the cause of his country and mankind," — words then first 
used, and which have become too trite for repetition, simply because they 
are in themselves, beyond comparison, comprehensive, appropriate, majestic, 
worthy of the great heart that sought expression in them. 

Washington's life here has left few records except those which belong to 
the history of the war and of the country. He lived generously, though 
frugally, — receiving often at dinner his generals, the foremost personages in 
civil office and influence, delegates from the Continental Congress, and dis- 
tinguished visitors to the camp. His own habits were almost abstemious ; 
and when, according to the invariable custom of the time, a long session at 
table seemed inevitable, he left his guests in charge of some one of his staff 
more disposed than himself to convivial indulgence. During the latter 
portion of his sojourn here his wife relieved him in part from the cares of 
the hospitality which she was admirably fitted to adorn. He generally at- 
tended worship at the church of the First Parish. I well remember the site 
of the square pew, under the shadow of the massive pulpit, which he was 
said to have statedly occupied ; and the mention of it recalls to my recollec- 
tion a couplet of a hymn written by Rev. Dr. Holmes and sung in the 
old church on the Fourth of July, fifty years ago, in which he describes that 
house of worship as the place 

" Where, in our country's darkest day, 
Her war-clad hero came to pray." 



10 

Once, perhaps oftener, service was performed in Christ Church, whose 
rector and most of his leading parishioners had become exiles on political 
grounds. 

It is impossible to overestimate the imjiortance of these nine months in 
Cambridge. Washington himself was impatient of the delay. But for the 
prudent counsels of the generals who knew their men better than he could 
know them thus early, he would have made a direct assault on the British 
troops, and attempted to force their surrender or retreat ; and it was here 
that he learned to wait, to curb his native impetuousness of temper, and to 
make discretion the trusty satellite of valor. 

Meanwhile, the array was constantly increasing in numbers, and was 
largely recruited from the Middle and Southern States, while in New Eng- 
land, as the term of service for which enlistments had been made expired, 
the soldiers either reenlisted, or were replaced or more than replaced by 
men of equal zeal and courage. There were sufficiently frequent alarms 
and skirmishes to keep alive the practice of arms; while the long line of 
outposts, more or less exposed to sudden assault, demanded incessant vigi- 
lance, and formed a training school in strict discipline, prompt obedience, 
and those essential habits of camp-life which the citizen-soldier, however 
brave in battle, finds most uncongenial, harassing and burdensome. 

The power of a single organizing mind was never more fully manifested 
than in the creation of a regular and disciplined army from the raw re- 
cruits, the materials heterogeneous to the last degree, to all ajipearance 
hopelessly incongruous, which now came under the commander's shaping 
hand. Confusion crystallized into' order; discord resolved itself into har- 
mony ; jarring counsels were reconciled ; rivalries vanished, as every man 
found his abilities recognized, his fitting place and due honor accorded to 
him, and his services utilized to their utmost capacity. 

Never in the history of military achievements was there a more signal 
triumph than in the termination of the siege of Boston. On the morning 
of the 5th of Maich, when General Howe saw the four strong redoubts 
which had risen on Dorchester Heights while he slept, he exclaimed, " The 
rebels have done more work in one night than my whole army could have 
done in one month." In the evening the British were secure within their 
lines, and counted on the speedy dispersion of the besieging army ; in the 
morning they saw surrender or flight as their otdy alternative. The siege 
was made complete and impregnable. But for the ships at anchor in the 
harbor the entire British army would have been prisoners of war. 

Thus closed the first act of the great drama, — here, where we stand, ini- 
tiated, matured, directed, borne on to its glorious and ever memorable issue. 
Ours, then, is more than a battle ground, — a soil hallowed by those wise, 
stern, self-denying counsels, without which feats of arms were mere child's 



11 

play, made sacred by the presence of such a constellation of patriots as can 
hardly ever, elsewhere upon earth, have deliberated on the destiny of a 
nation in its birth-throes, — Putnam, Greene, Stark, Prescott, Ward, 
Read, and their illustrious associates, men who staked their all in the 
contest, and deemed death for their country but a nobler and more enduring 
life. 

Enough of history. Let us now gather up, as we may, some few traits of 
the character of him on whom our central regard is fixed in these com- 
memorative rites. 

The Washington of the popular imagination, nay, of our gravest his- 
tories, is a mythical personage, such as never lived or could have lived 
among- men. The figure is too much like that of the perfect goddess born 
from the brain of Jupiter. Washington undoubtedly grew as other men 
grow, was not exempt from human passions and infirmities, was shaped and 
trained by the Providence whose chosen instrument he was. It was his 
glory that he yielded to the plastic hand, obeyed the heavenly vision, fol- 
lowed without halting the guiding spirit. The evident coldness of the Vir- 
ginia delegates in Congress with regard to his appointment shows that up 
to that time, notwithstanding his early military ex2:)erience, they had seen 
little in him to distinguish him fi'om other respectable gentlemen of faultless 
lineage, fair estate and unblemislied reputation. But from the moment 
when he accepted the command of the army he gave himself entirely and 
irrevocably to his country. Such singleness of purpose as his is the essence 
of genius, whose self-creating law is, "This one thing I do." From that 
moment no collateral interest turned him aside ; no shadow of self crossed 
his path ; no lower ambition came between him and his country's cause ; he 
had no hope, no fear, but for the sacred trust devolved upon him. His dis- 
interestedness gave him his clear and keen vision, his unswerving impartiali- 
ty, his uncompi'omising rectitude, his power over other minds. The self- 
seeking man sees double ; and we learn from the highest authority that it is 
only when the eye is single that " the whole body is full of light." The 
secret of influence, also, lies here. The man who can be supjiosed to have 
personal ends in view, even though in his own mind they are but secondary, 
is always liable to be judged by them, and the good that is in liim gains not 
half the confidence it deserves. But self-abnegation, when clearly recog- 
nized, wins not only respect, but assent and deference ; its opinions have the 
validity of absolute truth ; its will, the force of impersonal law. The pro- 
fessed philanthropists and reformers wlio have swarmed in the social history 
of the last half-century furnish a manifold illustration of this principle. The 
few of them who have carried large numbers along with them and have 
moved the world have not been the greatest and most gifted among them, 
but those who have cared not, if the wheel would only turn, whether it 



12. 

raised them to fame or crushed them to powder. So men believed and 
trusted in Washington, not merely because he was a wise and prudent man, 
but because they knew him to be as utterly incapable of selfish aims and 
motives as the Liberty whose cause he served. 

I have spoken of a sort of mythical, superhuman grandeur, in which 
"Washington has been enshrined in much of our popular speech and litera- 
ture. I think that, on the other hand, there has been in some quarters a 
disposition to underrate him. For this there is ample reason, yet no ground. 
He seems the less, because he was so great. A perfect sphere looks smaller 
than one of the same dimensions with a diversified surface. We measure 
eminences by depressions, the height of mountains by the chasms that yawn 
beneath them. Littlenesses of character give prominence to what there is 
in it of greatness. The one virtue looms up with a fascinating grandeur 
from a life full of faults. The patriot who will not pay his debts or govern 
his passions often attracts more homage than if he led a sober and honest 
life. The single traits of erratic genius not infrequently gain in splendor 
from their relief against a background of weaknesses and follies. 

We might enumerate in Washington various traits of mind and character, 
either of which in equal measure would suffice for the fame of a man who 
had little else that challenged approval. But what distinguishes Washing- 
ton preeminently is that it is impossible to point out faults or deficiencies 
that marred his work, detracted from his reputation, dishonored his life. 
The most observed and best known man in the country for the eight years 
of the war and for the other eight of his presidency, even jealousy and 
partisan rancor could find no pretence for the impeachment of his discretion 
or his virtue. His biographers have seemed to revel in the narrative of 
some two or three occasions on which he was intensely angry, as if, like the 
vulnerable heel of Achilles, they were needed to show that their hero was 
still human. 

But let it not be forgotten that this roundness of moral proportions, this 
utter lack of picturesque diversity in his character, must have been the out- 
come of strenuous self-discipline. His almost unruffled calmness and serenity 
Avere the result, not of apathy, but of self-conquest. It was the fierce war- 
fare and decisive victory within that made him the cynosure for all eyes, 
and won for him the homage of all hearts that loved their country. We 
know but little of the details of his private life for the first forty years or 
more ; but even the reverence of posterity has not succeeded in .wholly 
veiling from view the undoubted fact that he was by nature vehement, im- 
pulsive, headstrong, impatient, passionate,— a man in whose blood the fiery 
coursers might easily have run riot, and strewed their way with havoc. 
By far the greater honor is due to him who so held them under bit, rein and 
curb that masterly self-control under intenscst provocation became his fore- 



13 

most characteristic, — that disaiipointment, delay, defeat, even treachery, so 
seldom disturbed his equanimity, sj^read a cloud over his brow, or drew from 
him a resentful or bitter word. 

We admire, also, in him the even poise with which he bore his high com- 
mand in war and in the counsels of the nation. In mien, manner, speech, 
intercourse, he was never beneath, and never above his place. Dignity 
without haughtiness, firmness without obstinacy, condescension without 
stooping, gentleness without suppleness, affability without undue familiarity, 
were blended in him as in hardly any other historical personage. No one 
who could claim his ear was repelled ; yet to no one did he let himself down. 
He sought and received advice, gave its full weight and worth to honest dis- 
sent, yet never for a moment resigned the leader's staff. The more 
thoroughly we study the history of the war, the more manifest is it that on 
this one man more than on all beside depended its successful end. Congress 
lacked equally power and promptness ; the State legislatures were dilatory 
and often niggardly in provision for their troops ; exposuie and privation 
brought portions of the army to the very brink of revolt and secession ; 
cabals were raised in behalf of generals of more brilliant parts and more 
boastful pretensions ; success repeatedly hovered over his banner only to 
betray him in the issue ; yet in every emergency he was none the less the 
tower of strength, or rather the guiding pillar of the nation by day and night, 
in cloud and fire. Heart and hope never once forsook him, and his elastic 
courage sustained failing hearts and rekindled fiickering hope. 

His judgment of men, his keen insight into character, has also its promi- 
nent place among the sources of his power. In Arnold, indeed, and to 
some degree in Gates, he was deceived ; but of the many in whom he re- 
posed confidence it is hard to add to the list of those who betrayed his trust. 
He recognized instantly the signal merit of Greene, and employed him 
constantly in the most arduous and responsible service. Putnam, and the 
other brave and devoted, but untrained generals whom he found here on his 
arrival, lost nothing in his regard by their rusticity of garb and mien. 
Pickering, than whom the annals of our State bear the name of no more 
ardent patriot or more honorable man, was successively his secretary, com- 
missary general and quartermaster, and held in his presidency, at one time 
or another, the chief place in almost every department of the public service- 
In Hamilton's very boyhood he discovered the man, who eclipsed his own 
military fame by repaiiing the nation's shattered credit and establishing her 
financial safety and efficiency. He understood every man's capacity, and 
knew how to utilize it to the utmost. Rarest gift of all, — he knew what he 
could not do, and what others could do better than himself; and he in no re- 
spect appears greater than in committing to the most secure and efficient 
agency the several portions of his military and civil responsibility, in accept- 



14 

ing whatever service might redouad to the public good, and in the unstinted 
recognition of such service. 

Time fails me, and so it would were my minutes hours, to complete the 
picture. Nor. is there need; for lives there an American who owns not his 
primacy, in war, in peace, in command, in service, in uncorrupt integrity, in 
generous self-devotion, iu loyalty to freedom, his country and his God ? 
Among the dead, the heroes and statesmen of all times and lands, his 
mighty shade rises preeminent, — -his name the watchword of liberty, right and 
law, revered wherever freedom is sought or cherished, the tyrant's rebuke, 
ths demagogue's shame, the patriot's synonyme for untarnished fame and 
unfading glory. 

This season of commemoration has its voices, not only of gratitude and 
gladness, but equally of admonition, it may be, of reproach. Our nation 
owes its existence, its constitution, its early union, stability, progress and 
prosperity, under the Divine Providence, to the great, wise and good men 
who built our ship of state, and stood at its helm in the straits and among 
the shoals and quicksands through which it sailed into the open sea. Where 
are now our Washingtons, Adamses, Hamiltous, Jays, Pickerings, — the men 
whom a sovereign's ransom could not bribe, or a people's adulation beguile, 
or the lure of ambition dazzle and pervert? Nature cannot have grown 
niggardly of her noble births, God of his best gifts. But where are thej'^? 
Unset jewels, for the most part, and incapable of finding a setting under our 
present political regima. Of what avail is it that we heap honors on the 
illustrious fathers of our republic, if we are at no pains to seek for their 
succession, heirs of their talents and their virtues ? Yet, were Washington 
now living, — the very man of whose praise we are never wearj?^, — does any 
one suppose it possible for him to be chosen to the chief magistracy? 
Would he answer the questions, make the compromises, give the pledges, 
without which no national convention would nominate him ? Could he 
creep through the tortuous mole-paths, through which men now crawl into 
place and grovel into power ? Would he mortg:ige, expressly or tacitly, the 
vast patronage of Government for the price of his election ? 

We sometimes hear the cry, " Not men, but measures." But if there be 
any one lesson taught us by our early history, it is that men, not measures, 
created, saved, exalted our nation. Corrupt men vitiate, mean men debase, 
dishonest men pervert, incompetent men neutralize the best measures, if 
such measures be even possible, except as originated, directed, actualized by 
the best men. Our rowers have now brought us into waters where there 
are no soundings. It is impossible to know, in the absence of a definite 
standard of value, whether our national wealth is increasing or declining, — 
whether we are on the ninth wave of towering prosperity, or on the verge of 
general bankruptcy. It is an ominous fact that an immense propoition of 



15 

individual wealth is public debt. Never was there so much need as now of 
the profoundest wisdom and an integrity beyond bribe, to crystallize our 
chaos, to disentangle the complexities of our situation, to disenthrall our in- 
dustries from legislation which protects by cramping and crippling, to 
retrench the spoils of office, enormous when not exceeding legal limits, 
unmeasured beyond them, and through the entire hierarchy of place and 
trust to establish honesty and competency, not partizan zeal and efficiency, 
as the essential qualifications. 

There is a sad and disheartening element in the joomp and splendor, the 
lofty panegyric and fervent eulogy of these centennial celebrations. It was 
once said in keen reproach by him who spake as never man spake, " Ye 
build the tombs of the prophets, and garnish the sepvUchres of the righteous." 
It is, in general, not the age which makes history that writes it, — not the age 
which builds monuments that merits them. It is in looking back to a past 
better than the present that men say, " There were giants in those days." 
Keverence and gratitude for a worthy ancestry characterize, indeed, not 
unworthy descendants ; praise and adulation of ancestors beyond reason or 
measure denote a degenerate posterity. Our fathers have done little for us, 
if their equals do not now fill their places. Unless their lineage be unde- 
based, their heritage is of little value. 

Fellow-citizens, let us praise our fathers by becoming more worthy of 
them. Let this season of commemoration be a revival-season of public and 
civic virtue. Let the blessed memories which we rejoice to keep ever green 
be enwreathed afresh with high resolve and earnest endeavor to transmit 
the liberty so dearly purchased to centuries yet to come. When another 
centennial rolls round, let there be names identified with this, our country's 
second birth-time, that shall find fit place in the chaplet of honor which our 
children will weave. Some such names will be there, — Lincoln, Andi-ew, 
the heroes of our civil conflict, the men whose prudent counsels and diplo- 
matic skill in that crisis warded off worse perils than those of armed 
rebellion. Let these be reeiiforced by yet other names that shall be writ- 
ten indelibly on the pillars of our reconstructed Union. Fellow-citizens, 
heirs of renowned fathers, look to it that in your hands their trust be ful- 
filled, — that the travail of their soul have the only recompense they sought. 



